1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to article displays and, more particularly, to a display with an elongate rod from which articles can be hung for display.
2. Background Art
A multitude of different articles are displayed at point of purchase in a hanging position from vertical walls. In one well-known construction, a base component is secured to a wall in a manner whereby the base is either fixed or is movable selectively into different positions. In each case, the base is mounted so that it cannot be readily separated from the wall by a would-be thief.
A first elongate rod is cantilever mounted to the base. The free end of the rod can be directed through fully surrounded openings in the articles themselves and/or in packaging or hangers associated with the individual articles such that the articles can be serially hung from the rod and slid along its length. To prevent inadvertent shifting and separation of the articles from the rod, as when they are placed in bulk into a display state, the distal free end of the first rod is typically provided with some sort of a blocking arrangement. In one form, an enlargement is formed at the free end. Alternatively, or in conjunction with an enlargement, a slight bend may be formed in the rod so that unimpeded sliding of the articles to and past the free end is precluded.
In one design, a second rod is cantilever mounted to the base and projects substantially parallel to, and in a spaced relationship with, the first rod. The second rod, which is typically placed above the first rod, supports product information such as name, descriptive qualities, UPC codes, price, etc.
While this type of display structure is convenient from the standpoint of being easily set up and capable of supporting a large number of articles, it is, in the absence of some additional security measure, an easy target for thieves. This has been well known in the industry, and as a consequence security systems have been developed for use in conjunction with this basic system.
A common form of security system has a housing with a clamshell arrangement with halves movable around a hinge location collectively towards each other to a closed state and away from each other to an open state. The halves cooperatively define a receptacle that has a shape that is complementary to a cooperating rod. With this arrangement, the halves can be placed in the closed state with the rod captive therebetween.
To effect locking of the halves, one of the halves has a spring-loaded metal component that moves in one direction to reside in a receptacle in the other of the halves with the halves in the closed state. This structure positively maintains the halves in their closed state. Store personnel are provided with a magnet that is strategically placed relative to the housing to attract the metal component and draw it oppositely to the first direction to allow the halves to be changed from their closed state into their open state.
With the system set up with the housing halves in their closed state, the housing is slidable along the length of the first rod but is blocked from being separated by moving past the free end thereof by a locally formed enlargement.
In the absence of an enlargement at the rod end, these systems are not practically usable in the sense that they afford no article security. If this type of security system is used on rods with a slight offset angle, and no enlargement, the dimensional relationship between the rod and a receptacle for the rod on the housing is such that the housing can still be slid up to and past the angled end region to be separated from the rod.
As an alternative to using the above-described system, it is also known to wrap a flexible component around the separate rods adjacent their free ends after the articles have been placed for display. This flexible component, which may be a flexible wire, blocks passage of the articles past the free end of the first rod.
However, it is difficult to devise any type of wrapped component that can effectively be secured to both rods so that it might not be readily defeated by a thief.
Further, in the event that the wrapped component cannot be simply and quickly installed, there may be a temptation on the part of store personnel to skip this part of the setup process, as an incident of which the articles become virtually unprotected in the display state and vulnerable to theft.
While the above type of hanger systems abound in all types of stores worldwide, and are used for a wide range of products from very inexpensive to very expensive, the industry has not devised a system that effectively affords reliable security while at the same time being practical to use and affordable to the point that it justifies the investment therein after potential losses have been evaluated for displays without any security feature.